Wire in the Blood
by LeonaWriter
Summary: A murderer is on the loose in Japan who kills in a messy way, blasting people from the inside out. Which isn't supposed to be possible, as alchemy doesn't work on Earth. Hakuba will have to work with both Kaito and a relative of his to solve the case...
1. It Runs In The Family

Wire in the Blood

A Fullmetal Alchemist and Magic Kaito fanfiction

AN: Set anime-verse well after the movie. Set ten years before the 'Children' OVA.

Chapter One – It Runs In The Family

---

It was a generally known thing that Hakuba Saguru could find no way with which t understand either the Kaitou Kid – the main reason he was even in Japan in the first place – or Kuroba Kaito, his classmate. For those people who had never been to or seen a Kid heist at all or even interacted with Kaito, the assumption could be made that the shared ability to give the detective identical headaches was all that made him think that the two were the same person. It was, in fact, only a part of the whole truth, but it was one instance when the generally known thing had its source in truth.

What most people did not know, however, was that Kuroba Kaito was often just as confused by the logical detective as the other was by him.

He couldn't say that it was the blonde's looks – if you ignored the unnaturally golden colour of his eyes, the detective looked just like any other half-English gaijin you could pass on the street on any given day.

Kaito wasn't concerned with the way Hakuba was obsessed with catching him, Kid. He didn't have any room to complain even if he was – he himself was obsessed finding and destroying the Pandora gem. . . and, if possible, taking down the organisation that had taken his father from him so long ago. Maybe neither thing was healthy, but without their goals, the two wouldn't be who they were, so Kaito didn't concern himself with it.

He couldn't really say that he cared for the cold attitude the other boy seemed to have built into him, but that. . . _that_ he was working on. Bit by bit, he had been chiselling away at the stoic. . . _Britishness_, in order to someday see the stick that had been shoved up his backside grow even a slight bit smaller. The guy seriously needed to relax.

There had been things before that time, but they had been little things. That only struck him as odd for a moment or two before he forgot about them, thinking that they weren't that important. He was a Kaitou. If he took out or forgot something non-crucial about a person's mannerisms, then it wouldn't be too bad. Especially if said mannerism was more likely to get him noticed than not. He wasn't a detective, even if he could imitate one. More than one. He left the deducting mysteries that weren't his business or that didn't catch his interest to those who were bothered.

That had all changed on one seemingly ordinary school day. Hakuba was still in Ekoda from the Kid heist that had gone off without a hitch just over a week ago, sitting in his usual seat just a few desks away from Kaito and Aoko when the two were sitting down, further to the front than Koizumi.

The half-Brit had come just in time for a series of science revision classes, and the day's happened to be the last until the test actually occurred the following Monday. They were having a whole lesson dedicated to chemistry, and the periodic table. Easy enough for Kaito, who had not only memorised the damn thing but had also had to learn how to use just about each of the elements to work his flash and smoke bombs precisely, so that nothing went wrong on a heist.

Not that Kaito would actually say any of that to anyone if they asked him why he was so good at the science. He'd just say that he studied hard. . . which was true, in a way.

He hadn't been able to catch sight of Hakuba before getting into his seat, but now even with his famed skills at being as energetically hyper and slippery as a . . . well, a very slippery thing, he couldn't seem to catch the other's face. Dirty gold hair, maybe. An expression, not a chance. When Aoko shoved at him and told him to grow up and pay attention for once, he only stuck his tongue out, only listening enough to sensei that he could answer the next question thrown at him.

He got it right, as always, but unlike him, the next person to be asked wasn't a thief or possessed of an eidetic memory, and got it wrong. The teacher, annoyed that the class wasn't taking the severity of the test seriously, caught them all out by asking them whether any single one of them apart from Kuroba-kun, who was still mucking about – and here Kaito started, guilty yet irritated, as he hadn't still been mucking about at that point – and perhaps a couple of others seemed ready for their big test. Could any one of them recite the entire periodic table, he asked? He doubted that they could.

Of course, Kaito knew that he could have. But apart from drawing attention to himself that he didn't want and giving Hakuba more data on him, he didn't feel like showing off such boring things that he knew. He knew he was smart. So did the rest of the class. So he didn't need to show off. . .

The whole class fell silent in curiosity, when a single hand rose. Kaito, sitting where he was, could only tell that it was a boy's hand, and that it was in the same direction as the place where Hakuba was sitting.

Wait. . . Hakuba? He'd thought the detective was good at electronics, not chemistry. Besides, Kaito knew that the half-Brit didn't need to prove himself either, so why put his hand up? He'd say that it was to calm down the teacher at least a little, but his cold attitude usually disallowed that. It was almost as if it clashed with his nature, if Kaito didn't know better.

Then Hakuba started reciting, and everything else in the magician's mind froze, allowing him to stare slack-jawed at the detective who had stood at his table, chair scraped back, recited the boring old table of elements not as though it was something learned by rote, but rather as if it were some kind of treasured memory. The part of him that watched peoples' expressions and dissected their feelings from how they said things caught this, turned it into one of his own memories, threw it back at him.

It was over nine years ago, and he was bragging to someone about what he could do. He hadn't cared at the time what they had thought of him, only that they hear it, only that they were there while he spoke, and it didn't even matter if they were listening or not.

People were listening to Hakuba right now all right. How could they not? It was like this was the most animated that the class had seen him in nearly all of his time with them, except when he was trying to catch Kid, of course. As if – insane as that might sound, to anyone other than Kaito, in this room – each element had a memory attached to it.

When he was finished and sat down, the class was silent for less than half a minute before the incessant and inescapable chatter started up again, causing the teacher to have to shout to calm them down. Kaito joined in mostly for the point of fitting in and not being seen as someone who, quietly, was contemplating the meaning of what had just happened from a magician's perspective. The fact that it involved implied Hakuba and Aoko baiting was purely coincidental, and was an added bonus.

An added bonus that, while distracting, did nothing to make him forget his curiosity. A dozen incidents bounced around in his head that he had put to one side before, but now were asking for attention.

The way that, that one time when they had been allowed out to some laboratory or other that was researching weird things, Hakuba had been approached by one of the lab techs, who then proceeded to take the seventeen year old away from the group and started to talk complicated chemistry with him, when he had known ever since the detective had first appeared, that electrics was his speciality. He had thought at the time that chemistry might simply be a hobby, but that hadn't explained how they knew him on sight like that.

The way that, every so often, there would come to the detective's eyes a sort of polite affection when Kaito spoke of his magic or when Aoko spoke of her father's lifelong dedication towards catching the Kaitou Kid. It spoke of having something that he treasured, but not something that he liked to let people know of.

Unbidden, his mind thought of those odd doodles that the detective drew in the margins of his investigation notes sometimes. He had actually asked for them back rather forcefully when he had realised Kaito had 'accidentally' picked them up as well as his own class notes once.

On the way out of the classroom some time later, Kaito stopped the golden-eyed detective before the next class.

"I wanted to know. . ." Kaito started, unsure of where to begin or what to say.

"Wanted to know what?" Hakuba asked irritably, having been bombarded by questions already and wanting to get to his next class.

Kaito hesitated. He didn't want to seem like any of the others who had interrogated Hakuba, because he didn't want to interrogate. He simply wanted to know, to understand, to sate his curiosity. The words slid out of his mouth before he had had a chance to think them over.

"How was it that you did that?"

Hakuba instantly froze in place, startled at having had a variant of his own catchphrase words thrown right back at him. He reconsidered his thoughts of simply telling Kuroba that it wasn't his business or testing him by saying something childish such as 'wouldn't you like to know' or imitate the Kid by saying that if Kuroba truly wanted to know, then he could find out for himself. . . knowing that none of these would tell the other boy anything at all.

In the end, he opted for the truth, if a vague one.

"It runs in the family," he said, before walking out.

Kaito stared, but soon followed after. He hadn't been told much, but it was at least a place to start.

Little did he know that over the rest of that day and the next, he would neither see nor hear much more than a word from the blonde, even if he was sitting in the same room or eating in the same area.

----

AN: Originally a oneshot in my mind, this fic spawned itself into a full-blown Plot Bunny. And Plot Bunny (I'll name him Wib) wanted an actual, chaptered story. So Wib got one. And Lo and Behold, there is now one more in the DC/FMA category, one that has both plot and includes more from the Magic Kaito side than the DC side.

Actually, I think that this may be my first Magic Kaito fic with little to nothing of the Detective Conan characters. That's different.


	2. Shouldn't Be Possible

Wire in the Blood

Chapter Two – Shouldn't be Possible

AN: ...Well, I did say messy.

---

The next time that they truly met and spoke had not been planned, not been a heist night, not been something that either detective or thief had ever wanted to see.

Kaito had been scouting out a nearby potential location, and had therefore been close enough to hear the first explosion. Close enough to go rushing in that direction even when he heard the police sirens heading the same way, screams clogging the air and the smell of something disturbingly familiar even all that way away. It didn't matter that he had just been researching a possible theft; he was a kaitou with an honour system that wouldn't let him simply turn away when it sounded like something serious was going down nearby, not when he could possibly do something to help, even if it was just to be another set of hands to help or another set of eyes to look for clues. Ekoda was too close to Beika to always assume that it was most likely an accident.

As he got closer and closer, the sudden shock of silence that had come with the blast wore off as people started to talk, to shout directions and commands, as the sirens of not only the police but also of ambulances grew louder. Unable to use his hang glider, knowing that it would be far too conspicuous and easily recognisable, Kaito was forced to run, dodging and weaving through the throng of crowds on the way there. Snatches of conversation were caught but couldn't hold his ear, carried away on the displaced air that surrounded his speeding self.

The first shock came when it looked like a miniature war zone, right in his area; the square was painted red, with other, less identifiable colours mixed in at various places. The ambulances he had earlier heard were now picking up the pieces of the injured and first aiders were helping those who didn't need emergency care.

Heading towards the epicentre of the destruction, he hid himself behind a carefully constructed blank Poker Face, thoughts such as _it's not supposed to happen here_ and _how the hell did something big like this happen without me knowing and doing something about it_ sliding about and being shoved out of the way in his head. He knew all too well that there would be no time for them. There was no definite chance that any of the detectives were on-scene, as he hadn't heard that any other than Hakuba would be in town, and the blonde's whereabouts were unknown to him at that point in time.

So until the others got there, he would have to play detective. He wasn't the perfect guy for the role – better suited to being a thief from his magician training than a detective – but then again who else in the area had a near-eidetic memory and noticed details so easily? Not many, that's what.

There were police stationed all around the inner perimeter to secure the crime scene, causing him to curse inwardly. He was only known personally to Nakamori's Kaitou Kid Task Force, and they only because he was a fellow magician who might be able to decipher Kid's methods – in their opinions. Murder and emergency teams. . . not so much. He usually left that to the pipsqueak, the Osakan and Hakuba. He'd heard that Beika police had a codename made up for Edogawa, but the rumour hadn't been substantiated.

Momentarily, he contemplated disguising himself as one of their number in order to get in, but that would be more likely to backfire on him than if he did the same thing on a heist; right here and now, people had seen him come to the crime scene as Kuroba Kaito, and he wasn't about to take the risk that came with his face being associated with Kid other than as the thief's number one fan.

In the end, he resorted to heckling the officers, annoying and cajoling them until they reacted and hopefully let him through when they realised that he might be useful.

So far, he hadn't got very far with that idea.

Still, he carried on, hoping that maybe someone on the inside would see the commotion that only a magician-thief could cause and come to see what was going on.

Someone did come over, but not who he had expected.

"...Kuroba, what the _hell_ are you doing _here_?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he rejoined with a half-hearted smile that couldn't be called a grin by any length.

Hakuba, now visible once the officers had let him through, ran a gloved hand through dirt-streaked blonde hair. He was obviously drawn out, a sight that Kaito had never thought that he would see in the ice-cool detective. The once smart tan suit now looked as though it had been worn every day for a week. The golden eyes were not, however, dimmed very much – there was still that spark of something excited, searching, that seemed to come with every detective.

"I, Kuroba, am helping the good officers to find out who did this by looking over the crime scene and collecting evidence. Should I ask what you are here for or I simply ask these good men to escort you bodily out of here before you cause more mayhem for us to clean up?"

Kaito made a face, but pointed over in the vague direction of where he had come from. The fact that it was the direction in which the next heist might or might not happen was a moot point; this needed to be dealt with first.

"Actually, I came from over there. Heard what happened." When Hakuba showed no signs of understanding him, he added something a little more obvious. "Wanted to help."

Hakuba's hand slid down limply from his head, his eyes finding Kaito's. Seeing only truth in the statement, the blonde sighed before putting on his own sort of mask; one of professionalism and command, so that the older policemen would listen to him, so that he could still be functioning, too, if Kaito was any judge of such matters.

"Let him through," he ended up saying to the officers. "He's with me. If he causes any trouble, he'll have me to answer to." The last was accompanied with a glare sent in Kaito's direction.

It didn't matter. He was in. He could help.

"Thank you."

Hakuba didn't even look back at him.

"Don't mention it. Just make yourself useful and don't get underfoot."

Kaito answered with a vacant nod that he knew even so that the other wouldn't be able to see.

"What've you got so far?"

A slight pause.

"Not enough. Not enough by far. There isn't really enough to get anything from – from what I have heard, at any rate."

Kaito started at this. Sure, the surrounding area looked awful, more akin to a war zone than anything, but...

"You haven't even been to where it all started?"

"No."

"Why not?"

A longer pause.

"I haven't been here long enough. I've been preoccupied with other areas and people who needed my attention, and-"

"Don't give me that, Hakuba. You're a detective. Detectives don't just give up on a possible crime scene so easily as that. There's gotta be some kind of reason other than you got here too late."

This time, Hakuba stopped dead and turned on his heel to face him, an odd sort of glint in his golden eyes.

"If you must know, Kuroba – then yes. There was something more. What I've heard of the epicentre. . . does not sound pretty."

"There was some sort of explosion," Kaito said, half to himself.

Hakuba nodded briskly.

"Yes. They believe that whoever or whatever caused it was in the centre when it happened."

"That's impossible. That kind of blast..."

"I admit that that was also my reaction."

Hakuba started to walk off again and Kaito walked purposefully after, as fast as he could without stepping on anything he wasn't supposed to or on something that simply looked suspiciously squishy and made him want to puke if he thought about it too much. The blonde was really starting to annoy him.

"Oi, if that's what you thought too, aren't you going to try and see if we're right or they're wrong? I know I'd want to make sure they aren't so much off the mark they don't even know what it looked like if I was the one the police actually listened to."

Again Hakuba stilled, but this time his hands made fists at his side, and he didn't turn back to face Kaito.

"Fine," he said, voice sounding strained. "Fine. You want to see? Then fine, I'll take you. Don't say I didn't warn you, and don't mess the place up any more than it already is."

Abruptly, they changed direction. Kaito could tell that they were getting closer to the centre by the growing number of official-looking individuals. A couple of times, they were stopped by higher-ranking officers, but Hakuba's name was well enough known that they were both let through. Crime scene investigators wandered around, in their element. A lot of the people there looked like they wouldn't be out of place on one of Conan's own crime scenes, which didn't make him feel any better. Edogawa Conan – known as Kudo Shinichi to only a select few – had solved crimes ranging from attempted theft to the messiest of murders.

Hakuba veered off at the last stop point to find someone who looked like they knew what was going on behind the yellow tape. Kaito listened in to the conversation intently, wondering vaguely whether or not the bastard that'd done this had stuck around. Unlikely, however, given what they had heard on the way over and what was just being repeated.

"According to the blast radius and the impact it had on the local area, the perpetrator should have gone down at the same time as his intended victim, but the witness accounts we've been able to get so far contradict that assumption. Most of them insist they saw a man of matching description going away from the area during the aftermath."

"So we've heard. Has anyone given us any indication of how they got away?

The man shook his head, the frustration of ignorance showing on his face.

"No. No luck s far. What with the ground displacement-"

"Ground displacement? What do you mean by that?"

"Just what I said. There's a crater big enough for nearly three or four people, a few inches deep. It's in the centre of everything."

"A crater. . ."

Kaito smirked slightly at the wa he could even hear the raised eyebrows on Hakuba's face.

"They're saying that it must have been the explosion that caused it, with everything going down before it went out."

Kaito snorted suddenly, but when he spoke there wasn't much humour in his voice, unless you counted sarcasm and irony.

"Nuh-uh. Fuel-based bangs go up at first, not down. Even if it's directed at the ground, heat rises – even if it's not fire. A crater as small as I'm guessing this one is doesn't get caused by any kind of explosion; it's solid impact that causes those."

He stopped, noticing that they were both staring at him. He blinked to add to the impression of innocence.

"What?"

Hakuba shook his head.

"Trust you to know that sort of thing."

Kaito shrugged.

"Got interested in chemicals a while back – wanted to figure out how Kid does some of his stuff and ended up having to do tons of research once I smoked up the entire house one time."

What was more was that it was true. It had taken him a while to figure out how his old man had made some of his stuff at home. Mom had been livid, and had made him clean up after himself. It had been her who had practically locked him in his room one night with a bunch of textbooks, even though she knew he learned better through practical preparation.

Hakuba merely rolled his eyes, a gesture that Kaito was sure the other would not have made the previous year, when he had first come to Ekoda. It probably wouldn't be an off-the-mark guess to say that the detective had seen straight through the implied notion that he had only been messing around, as his position as Kid's number one fan allowed, and on to the truth.

He couldn't prove anything, though. . . and that was the important bit. Not that it mattered right then, of course. They had more important things to concentrate on right then than whether or not Kuroba Kaito was a famous phantom thief.

Breaking the uncomfortable pause, Hakuba asked the man where exactly the crater was, so that they could examine the thing properly. The officer pointed in a direction not too different to the one they had already been going in and the two went off again, this time rather more quietly than before.

It wasn't long before the stench truly started to get to them, and Hakuba was forced to take a handkerchief – the guy seriously had one stuffed away in a pocket? _Just_ in case something like this might come up? – to cover his nose and mouth with. Kaito, a shade too slow on the uptake, choked for a moment before grabbing at and singling out a flag from one of his many hidden pockets to do the same job. The smell had been there before, of course, but it had been diluted with gas, petrol, smoke and sweat. Not to mention the fact that there had been so many injured out there that it hadn't really been all that overpowering, no matter that they could see it all around them.

The synaesthesia brought him back to the memory of his first 'case' with Kudo-kun, trapped in a house in the middle of nowhere with a murderer who had already struck once, twice, and he helpless to do anything.

There were two major differences between then and now. The first was that before, there had been a detective on scene, from before anything had even happened at the place to the time when he had had to leave because of having been unmasked – by the same detective as the last time, who had also by that point solved the case. Here, there was no Kudo Shinichi, de-sensitised against such things no matter the size. It was only Hakuba here, Hakuba and him. Neither of them had ever investigated murder without assistance in the two years they had known each other in. Their specialities were thieves. . . and thievery.

The second thing being that in every other murder he had been to, every other case that Hakuba had solved, the body had usually been in one piece. Sometimes with bits detached, sometimes at odd angles, sometimes odd colours, sometimes with the deceased looking as though they were merely asleep. But usually with the body in one piece.

This one here – _at least_, Kaito thought queasily, _I_ think _it's just one_ – was in at least ten dozen pieces, and none of them neat. All radiating from, unsurprisingly, the crater in the ground.

Unable to stop the rising feeling of bile coming up into his throat, Kaito searched desperately for somewhere, _anywhere_, just as a bucket appeared miraculously right in front of and below his face. Poker Face abandoned momentarily, his breakfast and mid-morning snack rebelled against him, going out the same way they had gone in.

"I thought that I had told you not to make the crime scene any messier than it already is," said a cool voice somewhat dispassionately from somewhere above his head.

When he looked up, however, he found that Hakuba – cool, calm and collected Hakuba Saguru the ice detective – was also looking more than slightly tinged with green, although unlike Kaito he hadn't had need of the bucket yet. Maybe it was simply an inbuilt detective thing.

Kaito considered shooting back some sort of witty repartee, but ended up staying silent when, apart from the fire in his throat burning like heartburn, he could not think of anything to say for once. Instead he simply shrugged and looked around, doing his best not to look down, as if he were suffering from vertigo. What he saw – unnoticed before due to his attention having been on other matters – was very interesting. Starting at the centre of the crater, there was a certain amount of space that was mostly body-part free. Almost as if someone had erected some sort of barrier between them and the 'explosion area' just as the bomb – or whatever it was – had gone off.

Hakuba had apparently seen the same things Kaito had, and had started to walk further towards the centre, seeming to be in some kind of detached state. By the time Kaito got around to reaching the same spot, the detective was sifting through broken pavement rubble, a strange look on his face. At times the blonde would take a piece of perfectly ordinary-looking slab, hold it close to his face, and mutter under his breath. In English. Which Kaito wasn't terrible at, but it was considerably harder to translate things when they were being muttered at the ground with plenty of emergency services noise pollution in the background. Usually, the bits of rubble would be tossed away like the junk it was, but every so often there would be a piece that was put to one side and kept, looked at some more a while later.

The blonde's behaviour was weird, even by Kaito's standards, but he wouldn't have done anything about it, not even really and truly worried, until Hakuba simply froze on the spot, staring at something that Kaito couldn't see. Hands covered by almost transparant gloves could be seen clenched around the edges of the piece of detritus.

Okay. . . not normal.

Kaito moved closer. The smell was still strong here, but at least there was less to see; a calm in the eye of the storm, as it were.

"Oi. . . Hakuba. Hakbua, you there still? Tell me, what is it? What've you found?"

If anything, the grip on the paving slab, oddly shaped paving slab, grew tighter, before loosening up ever so much.

"Grandfather," the blonde detective said, enunciating clearly yet softly, audible only to Kaito, "is going to be pissed."

Kaito blinked, his attention drawn fully to the detective who was now standing slowly, still staring at the innocent paving slabs. Confused, he reached up to scratch at his head, but the motion afforded him no extra knowledge or understanding of the situation. Again he tried to get the blonde's attention, but was ignored in favour of pacing, and more muttering.

Not having seen this kind of behaviour before, Kaito turned his attention to other, more understandable matters. Such as going up to a nearby officer who was just as bemused as he was and requesting all possible information on the intended victim, and any kind of description they had so far on the possible suspect.

By the time he had finished, Hakuba was garnering stares from all angles. The usually uptight and ice-cool detective had started swearing softly. Not as badly or as inventively as Nakamori-keibu, but well enough that a number of eyes widened and eyebrows were raised. Hakuba had a well-known enough reputation that it was possible that money was going to be changing hands by the end of the shift.

As it was, Hakuba's golden eyes brightened when he saw Kaito just standing there.

"I take it that you didn't have anything else planned for the day?"

Kaito shook his head, almost hearing palpable nerves of excitement in the detective's voice. He was entranced almost just for that, so rare it was.

"Good," said Hakuba.

He was then dragged by the arm all the way out of the crime scene, up until they had left the putrid stench and sickening sights behind.

"You mind telling me what this is all about?"

Hakuba paused for a moment, then shook his head briefly and started up again. Now away from the chaotic nature of the square, he could tell that they were headed in the direction of Hakuba's family home and Labs.

"No."

Kaito blinked again, but he didn't slow his pace, keeping in a rhythm with Hakuba's ever so slightly longer legs.

"All right. I'm the one you're dragging around – don't I deserve maybe even the smallest of explanations?"

"Perhaps," Hakuba said, not stopping this time, "but right this moment, you aren't getting one."

Startled at this new turn, Kaito pouted.

"I know where we're going," he stated, hoping for a breakthrough by putting a different turn in the conversation.

"Good. I'm glad that you have a still-functioning sense of direction."

It didn't work.

Not a one to make a Kuroba a quitter, Kaito tried again.

"So – why are we going to your place?"

This time, Hakuba clenched his fists but didn't answer. Kaito tried just about everything he knew or could think of to get the detective to say something – anything pertinent – but only ended up with various renditions of 'No', 'Shut up' and the classic 'Don't be an idiot, Kuroba' by the time they reached the front door. He opened his mouth, and Hakuba exploded, looking as though he had been wanting to for a rather long time.

"For once, Kuroba, just once, let me be the one who infuriatingly doesn't answer questions until I want to! All right? Good."

And, for once, Kaito shut up.

---

Saguru sighed and opened the door, heading first straight towards where he knew Baaya was likely to be. He didn't bother trying to tell Kaito not to move from the hall. He knew all too well that the magician hardly ever did as he was told, and had probably already been in the place at least one time before, making the exercise futile in the first place. Within only a few minutes, the woman was meters away, and looking quite startled and wondering what was going on that had the young master so worked up.

"Young master! Whatever is the matter? I heard about that incident in town, but I thought that you were..."

"I was. Now, however, I have need of a mostly unused room, some chalk and quite possibly a telephone line for an international call back to England."

He could say this for the woman; while she was not as intelligent as he, she definitely knew when to simply do as she was asked – albeit with the same I Will Be Told Sooner Or Later look that she often employed when he gave her such demands. What was more was that he knew that she would get what she asked for in that respect; she did deserve it, after all.

After a brief conversation with one of the cleaning maids, she led both of them to one of the upper floor corridors. From there she left and then came back ten minutes later with the required chalk. She then left them, assuring him that she would be right back there as soon as he needed her next. Ignoring Kuroba's snickers, he opened the door with the key she had left him and led the way inside.

The room itself was exactly what he had had in mind, and for some reason that, in and of itself, gave him a slight shiver as he went further in.

Dust, while not readily apparent, was still evident in the air when the old-fashioned electric lights were turned on. A couple of heavy antique desks were set against the far wall, rows and stacks of more modern wooden chairs in between them. Odds and ends were piled up in what Kuroba would call the 'First available surface Filing System'.

Momentarily, he was reminded of his grandfather's stories of how, as a young child, the man had messed about and played not only outside, but also in dusty places such as this, in silent meditation of alchemy books not understood by those many years his senior.

Luckily for him, there was no clutter on the floor of this room. Not even a carpet.

He smiled, and started making absolutely sure that the area was both clear and clean before attempting to do anything – a good reason for this being that if the floor was dirty when he drew the array, then the alchemic reaction would certainly be faulty, possibly even dangerously so; the idea of which he could not in his right mind give form, given that he was in his family home. Baaya wasn't too far away.

Kuroba was _right there_.

He froze, remembering how his grandfather had also told of his and his brother's greatest mistake. The one that had left grandfather in need of mechanical prosthetics and his great-uncle Alphonse's entire body taken away in favour of an empty suit of armour that could hardly even feel for the better part of four years. Risking a glance at Kuroba – who was now looking at him strangely – he promised himself: under no circumstances would he allow that sort of thing to occur during his generation.

_No matter what._

Satisfied that the area was safe for a transmutation, he brought out the chalk, drawing first the outer circle, then the inner, closely followed by the symbols that would define the equation he was after.

"...Oi, Hakuba?"

He paused, not moving except to twist his face to see Kuroba better. What he saw surprised him; the magician was looking worried. Kuroba hardly ever looked worried. But then again, he thought, it isn't every day that you get to see someone do what must appear to any outside to be some sort of witchcraft ritual or some such nonsense. He waited for the inevitable question.

"Did you just draw. . . a perfect circle?"

Saguru blinked. Looked at his array. Shrugged.

"I suppose I did."

"_Twice_?"

"It isn't all that big of a deal, Kuroba. I was taught how to do these kinds of things since I was very young, by my grandfather. He would probably be extremely put out if I couldn't draw a perfect circle by now."

Kuroba's head tilted to one side.

"Would that be the same grandfather who's gonna be pissed at you for trying something like this?"

Sucking air through his teeth, he clenched his hand around the chalk.

"Grandfather Elric is not going to be angry at me for attempting to do this. . . I hope. I believe rather that he is going to be more – more pissed off if what I'm about to attempt actually _works_."

Kaito stared, but then started to move forward, hands safely inside pockets at least, but towards the transmutation array as if to take a closer look. Saguru's eyes widened and his breath hitched.

"Don't. Don't come any closer, and don't even touch it at all."

Kuroba stared at him again, this time looking as though he'd gone crazy somehow.

"I mean it. In just a minute I will have completed the array, and when I activate it, I want you over by that wall, Kuroba. This is supposed to be simple. That doesn't mean that it has to be simple. It won't be if you're anywhere near."

"And why might that be?"

He took a long breath and resumed drawing the array.

"Because," he said slowly, "the transmutation circle that I have been drawing was only designed for a few certain elements, and ways to use those elements. If anyone were to even accidentally put a part of themself into the circle other than myself, there would be the potential for disaster."

There. Done. He put the chalk down somewhere on top of a stack of chairs, for possible use later on. Made sure that it wasn't about to roll off any time soon. Looked back up, only to find that Kuroba – who, he was unsurprised to find, could be sensible when he wanted to – was backed up against the opposite wall.

Saguru was sure that his heart was beating too loudly and hardly in his chest. It was now – now or never, as the saying went, he supposed. Not that he would never have another chance, but that he probably would never be able to gain the right adrenaline rush, combined with the right amount of confidence that it _would work_.

Risking one more glance to make sure that Kuroba hadn't moved, he turned his whole attention to the transmutation ahead of him. It was a wonder that his hands weren't shaking as he rose them to chest height and drew them together in what would have, if it had been any faster, been a clap. Parted his hands, made them hover over the circle a ways off from the floor.

And that. . . that was when the circle lit up.

He sighed from relief at the sight of a healthy blue hue, instead of a sickly red. But the relief was short-lived – he still had to run the human part of the equation through his mind, keep all of his concentration on that until it was done. And his knowledge had not been gained from the Gate, as his grandfather's and uncle's had been.

Sweat beaded down his forehead. This both should and shouldn't be possible. Should, because he had seen evidence at the crime scene that the perpetrator had used alchemy – if not to commit the crime, then definitely to protect himself from the blast. If they had been able to, then why not he, who had alchemy running in his blood?

Shouldn't be possible, because in all of his grandfather's and great-grandfather's time on this Earth, neither had been able to do what he was now doing.

The hue of the sparks of alchemic light reminded him of the shirt Kuroba was wearing. Dark blue, the same colour as the Kid's, only a little lighter, as though it had been mixed up in the wash. . .

He had a point to fix on.

Kuroba's shirt was Kid's shirt, his jeans no longer rumpled and dirty from the crime scene but clean and pressed trousers. There was no monocle on his eye, nor hat on his head, but he was smirking, the same way he had seen Kuroba smirk in class just the other day which had reminded him so strongly of Kid.

With his aptitude for telling the time so precisely, it wasn't that hard to quickly think up all of the specific equations, angles and values in the correct proportions for what he envisioned. Luckily, for something so simple he didn't need to attempt to differentiate between colours, so that was one part at least that he didn't need to worry about.

The lights faded eventually, the sparks of the alchemic light show dimmed. Saguru slumped forward onto his hands, more exhausted from nerves than any energy that the process might have taken up.

"What. . . what the hell was that?"

He laughed, a release for the pent up emotions that had left him reeling. As he trailed off, he noticed that Kuroba was still backed against the wall, though staring with morbid curiosity at the figurine of wood that had been literally made from the floorboards.

"It's all right now. You can come into the circle. It's safe."

Kuroba approached hesitantly, and once he was close enough poked the figure of the half-disguised Kid with the stick of a toy Japanese flag. Saguru didn't entirely wish to know how he had either found one or where it might have been put in hiding on the thief's person, but even so the statuette did not move, proving it to be no trick.

"I'll say it again," Kuroba said, looking back up at him and in the eye, a serious expression on his face. "How did you do that – what was it?"

He looked away, uncertain now, which was useless really, since this was all after the point.

"It. . . that is, I used alchemy. To transmute something."

"...You what?"

"I said that I had just used alchemy. Grandfather is going to be pissed. He's been searching for ways to use alchemy or go back over the gate since long before I was ever born."

"Alchemy. Hakuba, it's impossible. It _isn't real_."

"_Magic_ isn't real, yes. Alchemy, apparently not. At least, so it appears."

"What _is_ it that you've got against magic?"

"It shouldn't be possible," he said, sounding more like he knew what he was talking about than he felt he did. "It completely ignores the Laws – Equivalent Exchange, Conservation of Mass..."

"Not impossible – just highly improbable."

"...Did you just quote Holmes at me?"

"I think that's what I just said, yeah."

For a moment, he just stared, but then he shook his head, knowing better than to go any further. After all, he himself had read the Arsene Lupin books in their original French, but that didn't mean to say that he agreed with everything that was said.

In the meantime, Kuroba had laid himself down on his front in order to get a closer look at the scaled-down Kid. He was frowning.

"Well?" Saguru asked, amused. "What do you think? A good likeness?"

Kuroba scowled up at him, and poked his tongue out at him slightly.

"Won't you stop that?" He asked, sounding preoccupied. "I might be Kid's number one fan, but I'm not him. I don't know what his face looks like."

"I was looking at you when I was coming up with the equations, you know," he said into the growing uneasiness.

"Honoured," said Kuroba shortly "So what was it that you actually wanted to show me?"

He sighed, shuffled himself back far enough that he could rest his head against the wall with his eyes closed. His heart clenched at the thought of telling Kuroba of all people what he had deduced, even if later on all of the evidence was stacked against it. No one should have to know that such a thing was possible, even.

Except that everything had gone this far already, and Kuroba had seen the crime scene. He was smart. Now that he had seen a transmutation, it wouldn't take too long for the thief to figure out that the rest would be possible. And then he, Saguru, would be blamed for not saying anything about it previously.

"I believe," he said somewhat distantly, "that the criminal used alchemy at some point. I might be wrong, but. . . I believe that that is what killed the victim."

Kuroba immediately clammed up, jumping back up into a sitting position and slightly away from him.

"How?"

"My grandfather sometimes spoke of an alchemist he had known of, who would have been able to do such a thing. I have reason to believe that the one active today was not so skilled, however."

The words were bitter in his mouth, calling something like that a skill.

"What kind of thing are we talking about, here?"

"The ability to turn a living human being into a bomb," he replied, flatly and promptly. "I started to think that this was the method used because of the lack of electrical or chemical equipment in the general vicinity of the . . . explosion's epicentre. Also, because of the distinctive rectangular markings on the ground nearby, which I am sure you could also see on the wooden Kid, here. A truly skilled alchemist, such as my grandfather at his peak, would not have left such imperfections."

There was a short silence. In the distance, emergency vehicles could still be heard going to and from the crime scene, not too far away. Upon consultation of his pocket watch, he was startled to find that so little time had passed. Kuroba cursed, and on the inside Saguru agreed wholeheartedly.

"I guess," Kuroba said suddenly, Poker Face belying his true emotions once more as the shock wore off, "that's why you asked for the phone, right?"

He nodded sharply, and dragged himself up off of the floor, Kuroba following not long after, and dusted himself off.

"Yes. I believe that now, since I have proof and more than a simple hunch, I can make contact with my grandfather. He does, after all, know much more about such things than I ever will."

"Right." Kuroba stretched, passing a hand through his hair once he was done. "You do that. I need to get back home. Mom's probably heard about what happened and started to worry already..."

Saguru nodded again absently.

"I quite understand. Go ahead. If it helps, I will call you once everything has been sorted out, if that is all right with you, that is."

"Sure thing. Hey, can I take that?"

"Oh, what?" Kuroba was pointing at the unmasked Kid, still attached to the floor. "No. No, I think that I would prefer it if it stayed here." Seeing the conflict in Kuroba's eyes and understanding what his own words might possibly mean in a different context, he further explained. "This is my proof to show grandfather," he said, trying not to sound too much like he was supporting the other's alternate identity but also attempting to put at least some compassion into what he said. "Perhaps you could have it later. It should be detached easily enough by then."

The magician's relief was near palpable as he smiled before disappearing through the door and out of the Hakuba family home.

Head still reeling, Saguru made his own way down at a slower pace, attempting to keep his mind on where he was going and what he was about to do instead of what had just happened.

So he headed down towards the kitchenette area, where he knew from experience that Baaya would be waiting for him, with two hot, steaming cups of tea at the ready. Possibly three, since Kuroba had come in with him, but that didn't matter much. He felt like he could take the extra.

A trip down the stairs and two cups of steaming brew later, and he was ready for the call. Baaya held the phone out to him, and he tapped in the numbers for the international call back to England, where his grandfather should still be if he hadn't gone tearing off on another of his adventures. It was unlikely, but sometimes the Elric was as unpredictable as he had found Kuroba to be.

As the ringing tone started, his nerves made his heartbeat pound in his chest. Belatedly, he realised that Kuroba had probably been right; his grandfather was likely going to ream him out for attempting real alchemy without his or his brother's presence. But it was hardly as though he could do anything about that now. The phone had already been picked up and his grandfather's aggravated tones. He winced at the sudden realisation that it must be only just past one o'clock in the morning in England.

"You'd better have a damn good reason for calling me up like this, kid – I was right in the middle of something!"

Thank the Lord for small mercies, then. Not asleep or out of the country.

"I have reason to believe that whatever you were in the middle of can wait, grandfather. I somehow doubt that the news has reached the rest of the world yet, but there has been a rather interesting and unusual crime in Japan."

There was a dark snort from the other end.

"So far as I can tell, there are always interesting and unusual crimes in Japan. Especially in your area."

"Unfortunately not of the same calibre, I'm afraid," he said, shaking his head. "Most cases have an obvious culprit base, understandable methods and means, and not to mention that there is usually a motive of some kind against the victim."

"So what're you calling me for? And at this time? Surely it's just some random murder. You and your friends have dealt with these kinds of things nearly all the time since you left to stay over there."

"Hardly. I called you personally because I thought that you in particular would be able to shed light on the case. I. . . don't know enough..."

There was a short, telling pause.

"You aren't saying... what I think you're saying, are you?"

"I think that I am. If it turns out that I truly am right, and this isn't simply a coincidence, then this case will definitely need the help of the one formerly known as the Fullmetal Alchemist."

"Heh. That so. . . I guess it's just as well I was going to be coming over there anyway soon then, huh?"

Saguru blinked.

"Eh? Why would that be?"

Edward Elric laughed, making his grandson's eye twitch in irritation at his antics and because he was being laughed at after a hard morning that had taken far longer in his mind than it had on his pocket watch.

"Why do you think I'd be going all the way over to Japan near the end of August? You know, that thing that happens once a year and isn't Christmas?"

"Well forgive me for forgetting that it was so near to my birthday – I've already been through a lot this morning, and if I'm correct, Uncle Alphonse once said that you used to have the exact same problem, am I or am I not correct?"

The elder Elric's laughter died out in coughs and spurts, but when he spoke again he was just as serious as the younger.

"So – when do you want me over there? I'm guessing sooner rather than later, so..."

"As soon as you can would be good. Though having said that, perhaps if you could make it tomorrow? That way I would be able to arrange matters so that no-one is too amazed by your sudden arrival."

"Of course. . . you know, Al won't be able to make it."

Saguru nodded to himself.

"I know. I remember that he said that he would be in America around this time the last time I heard from him, after all."

"Heh. . ."

"What now?"

"I just realised – I should be able to get a look at this kid you keep talking about every time you're seen or heard from, right? Talk about a one track mind."

"A one track mind that runs in the family, it seems. And yes. You should be able to see him. If I am right, he should be trailing me about everywhere during the investigation. He reminds me at times of you."

"I should get on well with him, then."

Saguru shuddered.

"I dread the thought. Especially with the way things are going at the moment."

Edward laughed again, oddly reminiscent and in all likelihood bringing to mind the past and the person he had been back in Amestris.

"Yeah, well... I guess I'll leave that to you for now. Keep yourself out of trouble until then, you hear?"

He didn't even give Saguru a chance to respond before the phone clicked, sounding out disconnected tones. He put the phone down and rested his head on his hand, elbow propping up his arm on the table.

". . . Baaya?"

"Eh – yes, botchama?"

"Do we have any coffee? I think I need it."

----

AN: And that is much longer than I ever expected it to get to. I hope that a lot of your questions have been answered by this first chapter of the true plotline.

For anyone who doesn't know, 'Baaya' isn't the woman's actual name, it's simply a word for 'nanny'. Similarly, 'botchama' means 'young master' or 'son of another' and is used by both Hakuba's Baaya and Kaito's Konousuke Jii.

I've tried to fit the fact that Hakuba's an Elric into his personality in certain subtle ways. I don't think that this makes him OOC, but if you think that it does in any way at any point, tell me. Same for grandfather!Ed. I'm trying to keep him recognisable as the same person we knew from the FMA series, but with a lot more years on him, for obvious reasons.


	3. The Right Question for the Right Answer

Wire in the Blood

Chapter Three – The Right Questions for the Right Answers

-----

The moment he was out of the Hakuba residence, Kaito started to run. Flat out, full steam ahead, no stopping at other stations. Too much was going on in his head, scenes from the past few hours flashing away in his mind's eye, blue neon lighting and all. He was only grateful that he knew the route to and from Hakuba's well enough to take several short cuts on the way back home.

_Alchemy_. Human bombs. Sparkly magic – no, _scientific_ – powers. And Hakuba Saguru was the last person he would have nominated for having a weird and wacky super secret, complete with hidden identity. Kudo, definitely. He knew for a fact the guy was an expert, though not as good as he was. Hattori, maybe. The Osakan was, after all, friends with Kudo.

But _hell_. Hakuba? Not, definitely not, who he would have thought of. He would have come up with that blowhard Mouri's name before the British detective's.

He wasn't sure why Hakuba had thought to share the family secret with him of all people, though, other than the vague idea that he, Kuroba Kaito, would have just that much more understanding of the situation as opposed to anyone else, due to Hakuba's perceived notion of his identity as the Kaitou Kid.

And on that line of thought, there was also that wooden figure. The one that had been made by, apparently, a magical array which Hakuba had somehow controlled the wood of the floorboards with.

The figure that had looked just like him, and yet just like the Kid, all at the same time. It hadn't needed the top hat and monocle; it was all there written on his face. What was worse was that Hakuba had even admitted, proud of his work, that Kaito had been his model. Which meant, of course, bad news. As a solid object that could be removed and examined, it could be seen as a form of solid proof of his other identity.

All of these thoughts – and he himself – skidded to an abrupt halt when the siren of an ambulance sounded out for a few seconds. Not going full pelt had to mean that there was a very injured passenger in the back that couldn't be jostled.

The interruption to his train of thought caused him to swallow and remember what he was doing.

_Right. Mom's gotta be worried sick. Not to mention Jii-san, who knew I was going to be in the area when it – they, damn it all, they – went off. Whatever. Worrying over risk of capture can wait. Right now, so far as I know, Hakuba and I are the only ones who know anything near the truth about all this. _He laughed sourly_. I guess that, just this once, I'll have to live up to my status as Kudo's lookalike and make sure no one else gets hurt_. . .

He ran the last few hundred yards to his front door, just in time to hear the middle of a conversation aided by raised voices.

"But we've got to do something – he can't still be there, he _can't_!"

"_Please_ calm down, mistress- "

"But this is my son we're talking about here. _My son_."

"I'm certain that the young master is perfectly – ah! Young master!"

Kaito held up a tired hand in greeting but ended up being enveloped in a crushing embrace. His eyes widened in panic mixed in with fear and concern when he started to feel his shoulder get wet. Mom was crying.

"Ah – look, I was nowhere near when it actually happened. Well, I guess I was near enough to know something'd happened, but I wasn't involved. No way, I mean, I went over to have a look and see what was going on after, but. . ."

His mom took a deep breath and let it out shakily. Slowly, she released him enough that they could look each other in the eye.

"Oh, Kaito. . . we were so worried. You could have been _hurt_, or _caught_. . . I was on the verge of calling the police just to see if they'd _found_ you."

"M-mom! I told you I was fine – just fine!" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, backing slowly around the two adults in order to get to the stairs and beyond them, his room. "Hakuba didn't even ask why I was even in the area!"

Both of the others blinked at the slip, and he cursed at his inability to keep his mouth shut.

"H-Hakuba? Isn't that one of your detective rivals, young master?"

A half- Poker Face instantly shut down any abnormal reaction he might have had to the detective's name, but he was sure that it would be obvious to the others that he was hiding something, if not what it was that he was keeping from them.

"Yeah," he said, affecting a confident and cool persona. "We bumped into each other while I was trying to figure out what'd happened. I think he was too distracted to wonder about how I got there so quick, though." And with just another half-step, he would be within easy reach of the stairs – for someone trained as he was, anyway... "Sorry – gotta go do something. It's real important-!"

With his next breath he was bounding up the stairs after an improbable twist of his body to get past and between a certain few obstacles. He was at the door of his room within seconds and sat down at his computer not long after that, stretching his arms far above his head with fingers interlocked and legs reaching up to the bottom of his desk as he turned the machine on. The distinctive grin, however, was missing. He wasn't making preparations for a heist the way he had been the previous night. No, that would probably have to wait. . .

With a serious look pasted on his face that would've surprised any of his friends, he started to input the information on the victims into a chart program – the kind that he usually used to figure out which museum would be the next to host exhibitions more to his liking. This time, there were the names, occupations, birth dates and death dates of everyone who had been killed in this way up until this morning.

It was disturbing work that took him the rest of the morning to simply finish putting in the data. These weren't gems; they were people. People who seemingly had nothing in common, weren't related in any way that he could see, were selected, apparently, from random.

_That can't be it. No. . . it can't. There has to be something else. _Think_, will you!_ He kneaded his fist into his forehead in a failing attempt to berate himself for not being able to come up with anything. He was supposed to be a magician – and magicians thought outside of the box.

Out of the box. That was it.

He needed more data.

Without a single iota of hesitation, he minimised the screen with the data on it and brought up an internet, his favourite search engine booting up instantly. Quick as a flash, the name of the first victim was typed into the box, and seconds later a ton of information was flooding the screen.

_Inuyama Matsuko was an amateur gymnast and mother of three, who will be sorely missed by everyone who knew her. It is well known throughout the circles she frequented of how she was able to perform feats others only aspired to, yet she still declined to go professional, for fear of losing the relationship she had with her husband and children_. . .

Eyes wide, Kaito saved the page and copy and pasted the information onto a document set aside for her. He had to wonder what would make anyone want to have this person dead; she certainly seemed as nice a person as anyone could ever hope to meet. Maybe they were angry at her for not going pro? He shook his head absently. Something was telling him it had to be something a bit more than _that_. He went back to the search engine and put in the next name.

_It is widely thought that Hinoki Yamada would only think that it was right that anyone who thought of him now, did so with a smile on their face! It is only to be expected, after all, of the one who made so many smile, himself. . . as the great clown that made so very many children smile and laugh_. . .

Again he saved the page and committed the information he had already read to a file of its own, so that the data could be put together with the other victims' later.

The next was a housewife, who had apparently been living with her husband as a happily married couple for all of their married life, had two children, and become a local sensation at the local cooking and sewing clubs.

The one after was a chef, and apparently a very good one. He had been somewhat of the community celebrity, or at the very least personality that everyone knew. His food had been good, had made people feel better, and yet he had lived alone with no one but his dog for company when at home, and the dog had usually been left to the care of the school children while he as at work. Even so, he had always had a smile on his face and had taken his happiness from seeing everyone's faces when he brought them their meals.

Kaito dreaded to punch in that last name, the name that he had taken down into his memory from the policeman who had been there at the scene of the crime, all those things he had asked about, putting on his best impression of a grown-up Tantei-kun as possible to hide his discomfort. He had a strange feeling that he knew where this was going, and he didn't like it one bit.

Eventually, his hands seemed to ask the question of their own accord.

Daiki Kosuke. Musician. Perfect pitch, and not tone deaf – he wouldn't ever forget that one time when one of his doves had just happened to drop in on Kudo trying – and failing – to sing. He was just glad the dove had been just as scarred as he had been, and hadn't stuck around for any more. Daiki-san had been able to manipulate his voice in a way similar to Kaito, except for the fact that he used his primarily for singing and entertainment purposes instead of infiltration and crime, becoming quite the star on the karaoke stands.

Kaito groaned, going limp and banging his head against the desk, only barely missing his keyboard. He willed himself not to start breathing fast, not to have his heart beat faster. Even so, it was a good – very good – thing that he had already been sitting down. He didn't think that he would have been able to stay standing, otherwise.

Because now, he knew what linked all of the victims, if not why the murderer had chosen them or even how the culprit had known.

Hakuba needed to know. Whether the stuck up British detective believed him or not.

_Well, shit_, he thought to himself. Because sometimes, that's really all you can say.

----

It was shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon when there were loud but self-conscious knocks at the Hakuba residence front door. Only a couple of minutes later when the door was opened by a startled member of the household. The moment it was – and so quickly that the poor person didn't even get a chance to say anything, let alone stop him – Kaito was through and sprinting into the house proper, layout of the place memorised in his head by way of blueprints and previous experience.

"Hakuba!" He called out, forgetting that sometimes, in that rare freaked-out state he hardly ever got into, his voice broke at times to the boyish soprano he'd once had a few years ago yet was still able to affect. "Hakuba! Get down here now – or tell me where you are – or something!"

He was attracting stares. Not that he cared, or anything – he was a performer, after all, and if nothing else, the attention could possibly even bring him what he wanted.

"Damn it, Hakuba! Why won't you appear when I want you to?! I know-"

"Well, Kuroba?" Hakuba's very own dry, cool tones – a change from earlier that morning – startled him, as they came from behind. Presumably from the last door he'd dashed past. "What is it that you know?"

Kaito didn't know whether the more worrying thing was that Hakuba seemed so collected in the midst of all this or the fact that he had heard rather a lot more than he had actually been meant to, which had only come ou in panic and frustration. _Not good. Add it to the list, I suppose_.

"I know what links the victims," he said, words tumbling out rapidly, one after the other.

The effect was immediate, and not entirely unexpected, though only because Kaito had been with the blond that morning and had seen his earlier reactions.

"Are you sure? Certain? Do you have the necessary evidence?"

"Whoa, whoa, um, yes, I'm sure, and I'm certain. But as for evidence. . . depends on who's looking at it. Don't look at me like that!"

"Give me one good reason why not to," the detective said coldly, heading back into the room. "You come into my house, shouting for me by my family name – in my family home, no less, so you had better be glad I knew it was you and most of the household knows your face for some reason or other – and then profess to know crucial evidence for the case that we are both presently working on. Except it is only _circumstantial_? Please, please tell me that you are joking here with me, Kuroba."

"I'm not joking," he returned with a frown. "If I was joking, I wouldn't have come running straight here with the news, and I wouldn't joke about this anyway. There's too much at _stake_, Hakuba!"

The smartly-dressed detective stopped in his tracks, turned around slowly. His golden eyes – and now Kaito noticed how dull they had gotten in such a short amount of time, through stress and exhaustion, even though they had both only woken up a relative few short hours previous – made a quick yet undoubtedly detailed deconstruction of Kaito and his body language, probably running the conversation back in his head.

He consciously averted his natural reaction of shutting down any and all behavioural ticks that could give his emotions and reactions away. He didn't know, but maybe... just maybe, it would help the ice detective to realise that he was, for once, being serious while in his Kuroba Kaito persona.

Golden eyes narrowed. One hand gestured for him to follow Hakuba into the room. He did so, finding it to be a pretty ordinary place with a small television – turned on – and a telephone, which looked like it had only just been used, sitting on a table to one side of the far wall. A black and white photograph in a frame of two men, both wearing their hair in ponytails, as well as one woman graced the wall closest to the door. On the wall opposite, there was a contrasting painting of a landscape that didn't look like it was from Japan, though it might have been from either England or one of the other European countries. It had a certain look.

On the table by the phone were a number of papers. Some of them were covered in writing, several in familiar Japanese kanji and kana, others in neatly-scribed English letters, with a small few written in a mangled mess of both. Most of the other sheets were doodled upon. These were recognisably smaller, similar versions of the diagram Kaito had seen being drawn earlier. A few sheets had been thrown across the room, the signs of pen and pencil drawn diagrams – arrays, Hakuba had called them – evident in the creases.

The door closed with a click.

"All right then, Kuroba. Tell me."

And he did so. Told him about the victims, bringing out the print-outs from his pockets as he did so, emphasising on what they did and how well they did it more than their ages, blood types and when they'd died or where. By the time he reached the end, Hakuba's face was still as blank and, though Hakuba himself wouldn't admit it, _confused_ as before.

"So? As far as I can see, none of this points us any closer to who our killer is or why they actually chose these five people, seemingly at random."

Kaito wandered slowly over to the table to put down the scrunched up and unfolded pieces of paper, safely away from the other pile and print side up. When he spoke, it was quietly, softly, and with his back still turned to the detective.

"It's not a thing you can just pin down like that, Hakuba. You've got to be able to read between the lines and out of the box to figure it out. Not something I'd have suspected you'd be able to do, anywhere up until yesterday. . ." He snorted softly. "It's loose, but it's there, if you know what to look for. Not what they're doing. Not even how big they are – 'cause they aren't. None of 'em are even pro, you know?"

He sighed, knowing that Hakuba was probably impatient for him to get to the point, but hesitant to actually come out and say it, lest he make it any more real.

"It's how _well_ they do the things they're good at. When they're good, they're _real_ good. It's not normal, and it's not natural. I looked further into it, after I'd had my hunch, and it only turned out I was more right than I had been before. They're all. . . special," he ended, somewhat lamely.

"Special," Hakuba echoed, disbelieving. "We're in a murder investigation here, and the word you're using to describe what you see as a connection to them is 'special'."

Kaito coughed lightly, ever so slightly amused, and turned back to face him. It was with a dark sort of humour, however, with which he explained.

"You want an example you can better understand, right?" He asked rhetorically, sardonic smile gracing his face as he did. "How about we take someone a little closer to home, huh? Let's see, who can we choose from that's within the realms of possibility? Oh, I know – you know me, can't keep my mind off the Kid, so how about the Kaitou Kid?" He knew that by now his tone had grown less cheery and more ever so slightly manic, mostly by the fact that Hakuba was expressing his concern over this and his suspicion over his motives over choosing his alter ego as an example. "Look at it this way – Kid's a magician, right? Like me," he added, an opportunity to keep the two separate. "Except what the Kid does is big, it's extravagant, and it's dangerous."

"And you do isn't?"

He ignored the academic point. Of course some of the things he did as Kuroba Kaito were big, extravagant and dangerous too. His manipulation of one particular tower block's lights for Aoko's seventeenth the night of the Blue Birthday heist, for one. Not to mention the varied common tricks and pranks he played that would need a certain amount of preparation for any one of them.

"Some of what Kid does," he continued, "is absolutely amazing. Not just speaking as his fan, here – as a magician, too. You weren't there, but there was one time when he got on and off a baseball field pole in what must've been _seconds_ flat. His transformations – _you_ must've noticed how quick they are, how realistic. Few other people have ever been able do anything quite so believable, you know," he added with a hint of a truer smile on his face before moving on. "D'you know how many times he's almost got hurt?" Kaito asked softly, turning his face away so that Hakuba couldn't see into his eyes for this one. "How many times he must've almost missed, almost messed up, almost gotten late, almost not even made it there in one piece. . . but _didn't_?"

Hakuba was silent. Watching him, Kaito knew. But for what, he wasn't even sure if he knew any more. A reaction to see if he slipped, maybe. Something, else. . . he shook his head.

"Too many damn times, Hakuba. I'm his biggest fan, so I should know. Too many damn times. He's different, you know. Not just because he's a thief, or even a kaitou. Not just because he's a certified genius – yeah, I've heard you blather on about that in class – or even because he's probably certifiably insane to boot." He laughed at that, the last having the strange feeling of calling himself insane, but it wasn't as though he didn't have t-shirts saying so anyway, so there was no bother.

He turned back around again, but this time to intentionally face Hakuba in the eye, meeting startled – and was that concern, and _worried_? – golden eyes to his intense blue.

"You might have figured it out, Hakuba. I'm pretty good at some of those things myself. What's more, unlike any of the others, both Kid and I show off. A lot. Normal people can't usually do a lot – if _any_ – of those things, Hakuba! At least, not the way we can. And yes, I am including you in this. What with that weird magical-sciency thing you have going for you, there's no way they wouldn't. They're going for the weird ones, the misfits, the freaks."

_Freaks like me_, were the unspoken words. _Freaks like me, and freaks like you_.

Because if nothing else, that scared him. Freaks like him might be only one in a hundred or so, but the kind of stuff that made up whatever gene made them that way had to have some sort of random anomaly around the area.

Hakuba's eyes widened as he likely realised the implications. He seemed to still, hands flexing tense and limp.

Kaito, his piece said, couldn't stay still.

He wasn't the only one all of that described in the area. After realising that his analysis could mean him, he had checked something out – the public police reports for the area.

Both Kudo and Hattori were in town.

----

Saguru crossed his arms, using the movement to bring himself together in the face of Kuroba's barefaced worry. He thought that he understood where the other was coming from, he certainly understood that the magician believed in his theory enough to fear for his life.

His only problem was that, despite all that he had told Kuroba that morning, he couldn't bring himself to believe the magician. Either because the link between the victims was so outlandish, so unreal and mystic that it made him want to laugh, or that there was simply not enough hard evidence to suggest that they could hold it up in court. As if something like that _could_ hold up in court - he could just imagine it now. Not.

He was too _tired_ for all of this. A hand went to his forehead to drag a flopping fringe out of his eyes - he really did need to have that trimmed, if he wasn't careful it would end up as long as his grandfather's, and he didn't want to be the man's clone, no matter how much he admired the man, the eyes and hair colour were enough - and he sighed. As if the other day in class wasn't enough, then there was this morning. Which would have been bad enough if it had been mundane in nature, and was worse once he had realised the implications of the patterns in the pavement. The shock that came with learning that all those years of practice, theory and research done by over three generations of the Elric family hadn't been entirely wasted. That alchemy was, somehow, possible. That he could - had - done it.

And now this. Damn it all, but Kuroba's hare-brained theory sounded nice, but wasn't backed up by anything but a hunch. And while hunches were all well and good, they didn't get criminals safely behind bars. They weren't evidence. They were all about circumstance and guess work, and Sherlock Holmes never worked with guesses. He worked with deductions.

Plus, he didn't exactly like the idea that he was being told that he was _on the list_, so to speak. Or that Kuroba was putting himself on the list, either. Oh, he hadn't missed that one at all. And he hadn't liked it one bit.

"You're paranoid," he said flatly, not letting emotion enter his voice. An easy enough feat - he was dead on his feet, and emotion would have to fight its way through to his voice right now. There were more important things to concentrate on. "You're jumping to conclusions based on insubstantial evidence. My grandfather won't be here until around this time tomorrow. He and my uncle Alphonse are the world's only leading pioneers into the subject of alchemy as they see it. I am certain that he will come up with something..."

"You don't believe me."

He caught a glimpse of Kuroba's face, gaping like a fish out of water.

"No," he snapped, trying not to care, "I don't. You don't have enough evidence, and you're implying that there is in existence some improbable sort of gene that denotes whether or not you will be a freak, as you called it. Which I don't see myself as being, thank you very much. Or yourself, for that matter, no matter how insane you may be."

"You don't believe me," repeated Kuroba. "I don't believe it. I went through all that - this morning - and you don't believe me when I said all that?"

"Maybe I would," Saguru cut in sharply, "if you had come up with something believable."

"Yeah, right," Kuroba said, snorting and twisting his hand in what seemed like the physical manifestation of a rude gesture. "More like if you felt like believing."

"Well I don't. Deal with it. At least until tomorrow, when you can irritate my grandfather with your crackpot ideas and theories."

"You think I should just walk out there, then?"

For a moment, the detective's thought processes slowed down to let only a few select deductions through. One - Kuroba had just said that with absolutely no inflection. As though he had no opinion on the matter either way, and wasn't bothered at all at what he, Saguru, might say in response. Two was a simple two words. Poker Face. It had slipped down onto the magician's face as easily as water slid off of a duck's back, and probably with as little effort or knowledge that it had happened. A reflexive action, or reaction. In response to. . . what? He couldn't think. But he knew that he had to tread carefully.

Kuroba thought that the killer was out for people like him - them, if he was to be believed. And perhaps in this one case simply confronting Kuroba with the hard facts wouldn't be enough... possibly because the theory was so tempting to believe. And possibly because sometimes you had to work with what people thought, not just what they knew.

He sighed.

"Fine, then. You can stay here for now - do what you want. Knock yourself out. Don't get in my way."

He sent a glare at Kuroba with the last, knowing that the other would probably start pranking the house staff simply because he hadn't included them in his one demand, but there wasn't too much else that he could do. They should probably be used to Kuroba's sense of humour by now anyway, he thought to himself darkly, what with the fact that he had been used as the butt of many jokes on the magician's behalf for the past one and a half years.

Kuroba, however, only ended up surprising - and, subsequently worrying - him again, when no light of barely contained mischief lit up those illegally bright blue eyes. Well, maybe there was a little, but it was so dim that he could almost have deluded himself that it hadn't evne been there at all.

But still. Relief wasn't supposed to be one of Kuroba's top emotions . . . and he shouldn't be able to see it just like that. So clearly.

A heartbeat. Two. Kuroba looked away for a moment and he breathed again. Kuroba looked back at him and he wasn't all that surprised to see Poker Face making itself known once more. It was almost a balm after the raw amount of feeling and emotion that had been pouring off in the last ten to fifteen minutes, masks somewhat forgotten. With anyone else, it would have been a natural reaction. With Kuroba, it was out of the ordinary. Like the idea of seeing his grandfather willingly admit to being of a lesser height than most - one of the reasons he liked it when he came to Japan, as among the Japanese he averadged normal height - or drinking lactose products of his own volition. Not something that fitted into his worldview. Generally the type of thing that would have had him pulling up the old man's right sleeve and off with the glove to make sure that the full steel automail mechanics that had earned him his name were still there.

But this was Kuroba. Kuroba who had just been telling him his findings, who had just been acting out of character. And now he was back _in_ character. Just like that. If it was anyone else, he thought that he would probably be getting whiplash.

"So." Blue was bright, but hard. Like diamond. "Any way I can help?"

Saguru breathed, and concentrated on breathing. Bringing to mind how much Kuroba sounded and was acting like a civilian, less formal version of the Kid from that heist a number of months back when everything had gone to pot and for the first time, a heist that he had gone to had had snipers in attendance, would most definitely not help. Back then, Kid hadn't shown a single sign of shock. Only cool, detached concern for anyone who might have been caught in the crossfire. Much like Kuroba Kaito was sounding now.

He shook his head to clear it of the thought but filing the connection away into a specific part of his mind. Cornering his classmate was not, for once, on the top of his list of priorities. Catching a killer who used his family's alchemy however, was.

"There is a computer in the study, which is adjoined to the library. It would help if you could come up with anything more concrete. And even if you cannot, any other connection, no matter how tentative, might be useful. Feel free to use the telephone there, but I'm warning you now against using my own voice to get information from anyone who knows me. Not only would it be easy enough for them to tell us apart, but I have calls of my own to be making, which are both about the case and about my grandfather's imminent arrival here." Another pointed look - hopefully, a reason would forestall any delayed spikes of telephone mischief. "If you feel hungry, go to the kitchen. If you need anything else, ask someone. If you need anything more specific, ask me, and if you can't find me, get Baaya or one of the others to find me, and use my first name. Do _not_ go around asking simply for 'Hakuba'. You would most likely get my father," he added as an afterthought, deciding at the last moment not to have Kuroba accidentally-on-purpose get 'unintentionally' questioned as to the reason of his presence in the Hakuba estate.

A nice enough idea, but... he sighed. Not one that was exactly viable at this moment in time.

Oh, well.

Kuroba nodded curtly, giving one last glance towards the useless transmutation arrays that he had doodled onto scrap paper on his desk, some of them landed in the waste paper basket by the door.

As soon as the magician was out of the room and on his way - he held no illusions that the Kid didn't know the layout of his home - he leaned his weight against the wood of the desk, one of the arrays firmly underneath his hands by coincidence. A headache was starting to form between his eyes, he just knew. . .

One single alchemical spark flared to life weakly and died as he took his hands off the scribbled-on paper in shock.

Curious and with suspicions aroused, he leaned both hands back against a different array, one more amenable to the current resources.

Paper's shape was changed, slowly and agonisingly becoming that of an origami horse. Somehow, by some fluke, the printed lines that had already been on the paper previously became the folded wings of the pegasus of mythology; not merely a white knight, but the flying horse itself...

Terrified and exhilarated at the thought, he drew another circle on a clean sheet of paper, only to have the reaction die before it had even properly begun. He frowned. There hadn't even been a hint of recoil to show that something might have possibly gone wrong. Only a simple dying of the reaction, as though its energy source had gone out, short circuited somehow.

He found the chair that he'd been sitting at before, shoved all of the unneeded and unwanted papers off to one side, not quite off the desk. Then, he steepled his hands together in front of him, resting his elbows onto the table and leaning himself forward as he did so in an effort to think. To get to the bottom of what was now not just one, but two mysteries. The first was who the murderer was, and what the link was between the victims, not to forget the connection between the killer and the Elrics that simply had to be there somewhere. The second . . . how, exactly, was anyone able to use alchemy at all? After all these years, and so sporadically at that? What was so special about those times when he had been able to use his talent, and was it possible that the same rules applied to their suspect as well as himself? Could anyone perform alchemy so long as those conditions were met?

His headache only increased. He had none of the answers, and far too many questions. If he did try to answer even one of them, it would be theorising without the proper evidence with which to back those theories up - basically, what Holmes would have called guesswork, since he wasn't on the recieving end currently of any momentous bouts of inspiration.

He was missing something. Some part of the puzzle - some bit of the equation that had been left out. Not just some, but a lot. And he was sure that once he did figure it out, he would be kicking himself over how obvious it was.

But that didn't change the fact that with the facts as he had them at that moment, he couldn't piece what he had together. All he could do was to move on along the path that he had already been walking down and hope that something else turned up, some other light to shine on the facts.

He reached back for the phone, and his other, free hand, reached back for the pen and the back of one of the scribbled-on pieces of paper.

-----

AN: All right. So no Edward in scene yet. But he's coming. Oh boy is he coming. I've been trying also to make it clear that Hakuba Saguru is his grandfather's descendant - there are certain ticks and things present if you know what to look for. Yet at the same time I'm hopefully keeping him as himself as much as possible. Please keep in mind that all of this chapter takes place just from around the time when the previous chapter left off to approximately some time after midday, possibly the very early hours of the afternoon. It's been a very stressful day for both/all of them.

I've noted that in the Magic Kaito manga, Hakuba doesn't actually see the snipers/isn't at a heist with them. I figured that it might/might not be a while 'til he actually came across them. Also remember that he's had long periods of time out of Japan.


End file.
